TAMING OF THE SHREW

"Taming of the shrew."

No, we are not discussing shakespeare here. No Andrew Bradley quotes either. There is nothing academic infact.

The focus is on an aggressive rat-type creature called  shrew. To be precise it is the Asian shrew. This species (of shrew) is called chuchunder (छछूंदर) in India and is mentioned in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, as a nocturnal inhabitant of houses.

We were living a perfectly peaceful P.G.Wodehouse type life  when one fine morning I found that the telephone cord from the wall to the our telephone instrument

  had been badly chewed. In the following days tell tale signs of other things ravaged came to notice - a curtain, a shoe, a rubber hose. Then one day as I sat on an easy chair next to the telephone  watching a  crow outside on the compound wall pecking at something, I caught the movement of a shrew scampering on the floor along the wall as it prepared to go back to whatever place he lived after his reconoissance mission in the house.

"Hello shrew " I whispered, turning my attention from the crow to the shrew.

A shrew has very sharp hearing power.

He stopped and turned back and tried to locate the source of the sound that greeted him. I tapped with the walking stick close to him so that he would go away  but he attacked the stick violently. Good God, here was a combatant. I was taken aback. I am a non violent person.

As I neither moved nor made any further sound,  he turned back and quietly went out of the room.

I called an urgent meeting of all the stake holders. We decided  to use a non violent  rat trap - a wooden box that slapped shut as soon as a rat entered the box and pulled at the bait.

We set the rat trap near the door and went to sleep. Sometime during the night the shrew was imprisioned in the rat trap.

" I will take the trap in my scooter and open it far away from our house " I declared.

" This chap will come back " was the rejoinder.

That was indeed a possibility. Then someone gave a brilliant suggestion.

"Why not bathe it in a bright colour. If we see a coloured shrew  we will know that he has  come back. "

I had a few bright water colours and I gave the shrew a liberal bath in bright yellow colour as he jumped and squeaked.I kept the trap in the sun to dry. The poor chap would otherwise catch cold.

My fun loving brother-in-law was with us on a visit from USA. He said he would accompany me to watch the shrew-liberation-show.

We scootered a good distance and came to the cantonment area where it was quiet. I saw a Colonel's house across the road on the right where a uniformed guard stood at the gate.

My brother-in-law suggested that it was a good place to set the chap free as there was an open field on the left. We expected the shrew to scurry into the shrubs in the open field.

The shrew had different plans. He crossed the road as we set him free , collided at the gate of  colonel's house with the guard's boots and then rushed  along the driveway into the  house. The guard noticed him and ran after him, his shoes making much noise.

The colonel came out.

" what is all this noise ? " he enquired .

" Sir a bright yellow shrew has entered the house."

" Did you say bright yellow?"

" yes sir. A bright yellow shrew"

" Did you, by any chance,  have a morning dose of rum, just a little?"

" No sir. Definetly not sir"

There was a bemused expression on colonel's face as he  went back into the house.

Mission accomplished we came back home.

I waited and waited for the yellow shrew for a long time but he never came back.

May be, he  preferred army life in cantonment to the mundane life in the house of a civilian! After all he was a combatant !

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